Julie's New School
by qsuff
Summary: A look into Julie's new school, Seven Stars Academy. Set after the short story, "Magic Tests" by Ilona Andrews.
1. Chapter 1

JULIE'S New School

A Kate Daniels Fan Fiction

Quan T Suff ( qsuff)

= = =

Chapter 1

Life in post-Change Georgia is filled with noise, mayhem and violence, but here in Seven Stars Academy, where the pampered offsprings of various were-animals, mages, witches and the occasional human are shoved together under one roof, peace reigns. It isn't because we see ourselves as one under the benevolent sky, working towards world harmony. No, there are no love beads and smoking of peace pipes here, unless one counted the few, more furtive, applications.

The real reason we manage to get along is because of our Principal, Mr. "Call me Gendun" Dargye. He's like a vacuum cleaner for violence: any blood-letting thoughts just gets sucked right into his gentle smile. Unsurprisingly, he doesn't get mad either, but you find yourself nodding in agreement two minutes into any argument with him. That's so unfair, and just nasty.

The cafeteria today isn't exactly an idyllic pool of tranquility, that had departed after the first seating for the decidedly vegetarian.

The current, second seating catered to students whose diet included cooked animals. The noise levels have risen, but no more than the usual clatter of utensils, conversation, laugher and loud burping,

The third, and final seating is the most raucous, and is reserved for the were- and magical creatures who need raw meat and fresh blood. They only have one feeding per day so they consume huge amounts of freshly-thawed animals in various icky ways. And since my home is the shapeshifter's keep, trust me when I say I know what icky means. The cleaners then spend the rest of the school day mopping up.

= = =

"I'll be back," I said to the gang after I dropped my food tray on our table.

"Where're you going, Julie?" Asked Ashlyn, who survived on water and sunshine, but had been sitting with us since I unraveled her from inside a tree. Next to her, Sheila narrowed her eyes at me, as if smiling at her bestie was a mortal crime.

"Gotta have a talk with the god." I kept my face pleasant as I looked toward the corner where our resident deity, Yu Fong, held court.

"Oho!" Chortled Brook, "fireworks time!"

"Does it have to do with this morning?" Barka, who was a pretty strong mage, could not have missed the flare-up in class earlier. "Been nice knowing ya Julie!"

Yu was supposedly 18, but could pass for any age. One look at his perfect face would drive any sentient thought out of your head. Good thing I was totally immune to it. Now he'd added a smile to it. His cronies / acolytes shied away as I passed, even though their injuries had been healed since I'd given them.

"Hi, did you get..." His greeting faltered and he sniffed, "...my present?"

"This one?" I said and held up a large white flower, with soft petals veined in blue. "I found it on my desk this morning."

His frown deepened, looking less sure now, "You didn't ... open it?"

I hadn't, but when I tried to pick it up, it had, magically speaking, exploded and coated me with an overwhelmingly vile flowery scent, which necessitated a hasty visit to the nurse's office.

The medmage there, whose nametag read F. Tessect R.M.M, Registered Medical Mage, was most impressed. She stared at my problem for a long time, hmm-ing and tsk-ing as she strode around me.

She chanted a bit and teased a small piece out so she could poke at it. "Seems like it's made up some sort of magical core that keeps regenerating the scent. Wrapped around a geas to find you. It's intricate…" Her voice became reverent, "... most intricate. And it keeps attaching itself to your skin!" No kidding.

Without my asking, she gave me permission to stay, I think more for ease of research on my body than compassion.

"Hey, it's following your aura." The mage declared, "It's so cool how this piece I got off you keeps pulling to go back to you!"

Really? That takes the creepiness to a new high. I activated my super-vision and looked. Silvery magic, from a god, which left no doubt about who the culprit is now. Underneath that, was a barely perceptible film with the same whiteness and blue veins that was on the original flower. Clinging to me, to my aura.

I'd seen my aura before. Kate, my adoptive mom, had saved my life by giving me half her blood, and now both of us had our basic human-ish blue shot through with every flavor of magic: the yellow of shifters, witchy brown, some red and purple vampire, and maybe a dash of silvery god-hood as well.

Did Yu see all that? I hoped not, but perhaps there's a way to find out now. At the shapeshifter's keep, Dr. Doolittle (yeah, no kidding) could chant and duplicate whatever part of me he wished, and we could see how it affected the Julie-tracking magic. Unfortunately, asking the school's medmage to do that would make her look too closely at me. So I would have to do it myself.

Which was easier said than done. I was a sensate, meaning I could see magic flavors better than any machine could, magic or otherwise. Between Kate and my other almost-foster-parental-unit, the Beast-lord Curran, they know practically everything, and they had told me the whole world knows of maybe a handful of us. So we're jealously guarded commodities. And that's why it is imperative to let no one know about my skills.

Being able to see the magic does not automatically mean I could do anything about it. All I'd ever been able to do was to "borrow" the weaves around me and hide in it, a sort of invisibility cloak, I suppose. But that was before I'd seen what the Doc could do. I closed my eyes, trying to visualize the flows when he was healing.

He would chant and separate some of the translucent, neutral strands out of the air, move them to touch the part of me that needs healing, and it would adapt a sameness... Chanting was what he used to manipulate the streams of... magic? But I can feel them, even without the chanting. Eyes closed, I pushed at the threads to do what I've seen the Doc do, separating out and moving to my arm, then changing its color to mine. Something touched my arm.

I cracked an eye open. Was that patch darker? Slowly, gradually, a blueness spread out. Awesome!

I urged more uncolored threads out, and getting them to assume a feel for like the human "me." Using my fingers to mime grabbing at spaghetti seemed to help and soon a blue blob the size of my thumb wobbled on my arm. I could nudge it around and it appeared to suck up some of the smelly slime.

"Something's happening," Mage Tessect said tightly, "I'm incantating like there's no tomorrow and the thing is still fighting to go to you! I can barely hold it!"

Aha! So Yu had only seen and targeted the human me. The whiteness was clearly flowing towards the blue blob now, and as I moved it around, the film melted and reconsolidated around my "smell."

"Maybe you should let it go," I told the mage, "Before it explodes, or something." I moved the still growing lump towards her and she stopped her chanting with a sigh of relief. As soon as she stopped calling up threads to tie it down, the little white fluff flew back to me.

"Can I get a note to use the girl's showers?" I asked quickly, before she noticed what I was doing, "Maybe I can scrub it off." And settle some scores.

She looked at me and smiled sadly, "Probably won't work, but..." She scribbled one out and I rushed off, careful to keep the stink-blob between us.

I stayed in the girls' change-room and spent the time until the next class bell working on a suitable camouflage. Then I went to lunch, ready for revenge.

= = =

= = =

= = =

"Obviously I didn't open it, do I look that stupid? I can tell it's magical… What would have happened if the magic was down?" I asked, trying to distract the baby god.

"Then it would be invisible," His smugness was coming back now. "It's a pure magic construct, and it only exists when enough magic exists." Okaay - learn something new, even from ass-holinesses.

"You're magical, mostly, sorta, so how come you don't disappear?"

"The human part of me can store magi… But the flower…?" He pointed.

"It's hollow isn't it? What did you put inside?"

"Only the most rare, most sought after perfume," He practically crowed, "it's called the Heavenly Blossom of a Hundred Days, because the scent lasts that long." Right... they must have called garbage dumps perfume factories where he came from.

"Really?" I blinked at him, and he nodded solemnly back. "Then what's it supposed to do? How was I supposed to get it?" I just needed his undivided attention for another minute.

"It's made to recognize you when you touch it, then open and present you..." His frown deepened and he shook his head, "I just don't..."

"Do you mean something like this?" I asked, releasing the painted paper wrapper I had fashioned around the blob. This time, the white junk flew and swarmed over him, where I had spent the last few minutes coating with my human scent.

I took a deep breath and smiled, "You're right - smells like some perfume only a girl would wear. A hundred days, you say?" I stood, "Thank you very much, but I can't possibly accept."

= = =

"I see you're still in one piece." Barka commented, when I walked back to our table. "Surprising."

"Yeah, he's so sure you won't make it back, he scarfed your fries and pudding!" Ashlyn said.

"Talking about frying, maybe you should go sit off by yourself," Barka said, "You won't want us to get zapped when he fries you with a bolt of lightning!" He demonstrated a weak sizzle between his thumb and finger.

"Gee, that's amazing!" Brook gushed, "You could totally wipe out an ant with that!"

"But aren't you afraid of him?" Ashlyn asked, glancing at the corner. "You saw how he burned up the Th-thing!" The 'thing' being an eight foot tall wolf-demon that was getting ready to eat Ashlyn and me, so the burning up part was definitely good.

"Nah," I shrugged, "he can't figure me out, and I've got a few tricks up my sleeves." Hopefully I could figure them out myself before I needed them.

"What kind of magic do you have? I feel something, but it comes and goes." Asked Barka.

"Well, I can…" I started. A few people had seen me 'read' magic with my sensate sight, and it would be very dangerous if they figured it out. "I, er, I can copy magic."

"A Mirror witch?" Gasped Barka.

"No, no," I laughed, "No blood or, er, sex is involved. It's simple, once someone show me some magic, and if it's not too crazy or powerful, I can copy and use it, once."

"Just once?"

"Yeah, once, maybe twice. It's like an imprint. Once I do it, it disappears." I thought a bit, "Remember Lisa?"

"The Dud!" "Good riddance!" There was no love lost between the students and Lisa, who had been asked to leave after unleashing the aforementioned wolf-demon on us.

"Remember what she did?"

"Telekinesis."

"Yeah, she did some of it right next to me, so…" I concentrated and fashioned strands like the medmage had done to capture the scent thing. "I could…" A french fry lifted itself out of Barka's tray, swished in the ketchup and wafted into my mouth.

"Steal food!" Chortled Barka, "that's frikkin' awesome! Er, can you do the lightning thing too?"

"You have to show me again."

He opened his hand and a small corona formed in his palm, rolled to his thumb and flashed across to his pinkie.

"Showoff!" Brook sniffed.

I had never seen glittery-gray threads like that, but they were there when I pulled, but all I could do was make it dance a bit on my finger before it zapped me. "Yow, it hurts!" I said.

"That's real good!" Barka said, "You have to keep it off your skin, or it discharges into you." He added belatedly.

"Now you know how we feel." Said Brook, "He does it to our books, pens, you name it!"

The bell went, and not a moment too soon. Yu was walking over to our table, looking totally pissed. "Oops, gotta run. Have homework to finish." I grabbed my tray and hightailed it out of there.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

= = =

When I told Kate that I was willing to give the school a try, she was stunned. She obviously expected more of a fight from me.

The previous school I went to was ultra-traditional - they catered to kids of well-to-do families who expected to sit behind guards and warded walls and be waited on by servants. They had uniforms, and morning assembly. They had classes on Art Appreciation and Social Studies, even Ballroom Dancing as an option, for crying out loud. Some subjects, like Arcane Magic and Herbalism, I could get into, but nobody seemed to care if I did well or not. Chemistry, which I REALLY liked, was so dumbed down I could just gag. I mean, what good is it when you're not even allowed to blow things up?

Seven Stars had a much more practical approach to education. If it helped you survive, then it was important. Knowing which fork to use for the fish course? Not so much.

So I told Kate that Seven Stars seemed to want to teach me things I wanted to learn and, the best part, their students were pretty weird themselves, so among them, I could almost feel normal. She looked relieved, and even agreed to let me board over, since it's a two hour trip to and from the keep and I can't see me getting a car any time soon.

"Might as well," Kate sighed, "When you ran away from your other school, I had to send people out four days in a row to look for you. Here, you run off and I don't see you in 24 hours, I'll be pretty certain you're dead already." Yep, Kate Daniels, mother of the year.

Since the school pretty much jibed with Kate's idea of an education, I was up to strength on most of the subjects. Her freakish knowledge of ancient histories, cultures and languages gave me a leg up in all those subjects and, since she made a living killing things, I was pretty good at weapons too.

The one exception was algebra. I mean I had enough maths to know that a dozen dead bodies meant I needed 12 body bags, but who cares how many pies you need if you had to feed 20 people? Where I come from, it could be 10 or 100, they'd all be eaten. As far as I know, neither Kate nor Curran gave a hoot about algebra, but Kate had told me she wanted to learn everything so I'm trying my best.

Still, I was not in a good mood after fifth period.

"The answer is five," insisted Ashlyn. The same Ashlyn who, in the last test, got a whole 17 as her score.

"Seven." I said.

"F-five." She looked behind me, "Brook, can you please tell her."

"What's the deal?" Brook asked.

"It's just that Python's Theorem…"

"Pythagoras's." Ashlyin corrected. "The answer is five…"

"No, it's the square root, so can you get rid of the squares, 3 plus 4 is… seven!"

"Err, Ashlyn's right, it's five." Brook said, "You have to watch the Precedents. You have to do the Squares first, before you…"

I held up a hand, "Stop, stop. My head's exploding! I can't take this… It doesn't make any sense! It's like they deliberately make up rules to complicate everything!"

"Don't worry, we can go over all this at study period," Brook consoled me, "there's a couple of credits for tutoring."

"Of course," I sighed. Brook is constantly aiming for a 4.5 GPA.

"I know what will make you feel better," Sheila joined us, "will you spar with me at gym?" After a pause, she continued, "Your Mom's a merc, right? I want to join the Red Guard when I graduate." As security goes, the Red Guard is the elite of the elite, and only the best can work for them. Kate had nothing but good things to say about their skills.

"Sure…" I nodded.

"OK, meet you there…" Sheila said, then with a glance behind me, they all took off down the corridor.

"Hey, where are you all going? Wait..."

"Hmm, Julie Olsen, I would wish to speak with you." I turned and a white flower was bobbing about head height. On the petal, a single eye stared at me. Yu Fong.

"What do you want?"

"I would like to speak with you…"

"You said that already, so speak."

"It's a matter of delicacy, to be discussed face to face, as it were…"

"I have gym in ten minutes."

"Excellent, I shall be at the maze." The flower said and drifted away. I considered planting my throwing knife in the thing but it wasn't worth the cleaning afterward.

The school is a gigantic four story square, made up of four wings, and an open garden area in the middle. The gym takes up the width of one wing and, facing it was the Maze, so called because hedges formed an intricate pattern around a solitary apple tree. The maze was also protected by a powerful ward that punished intruders with something close to annihilation.

Yu Fong was sitting on one of the stone benches just outside the maze. Out here in the sunlight, his skin, which was perfect before, took on an ethereal quality and I almost tripped when he moved and a ray of sunlight caught his hair.

"Julie Olsen…" He turned his soft brown eyes on me. So warm, so deep...

"What…?" I snarled. Snarling is good when you feel like falling down and groveling. Snarl good, grovel bad.

"Julie Olsen, you have marked me."

"What?"

"You have left an indelible mark upon my person."

"What? Huh?" I'd really mastered this witty comeback thing.

"At lunch, after I removed the 'Heavenly Blossom of a Hundred Days' scent, I discovered the I have now acquired a likeness of you."

"What do you mean? A likeness of me?"

"It's the essential-ness of your being. And it's part of me now!"

"Essential-ness? Is that a word?"

"Ahh," he threw his hands up, "The English language is so limited! Your… zhen di - your, ah… aura!"

"Oh… My aura." I looked at him, "I needed to get the scent to go back to you! So I made you 'smell' like me, only stronger…"

"You can do that?"

"I guess…"

"You can remove it, can't you?"

"I guess…" Please. Somebody get me out of repeat mode!

"Now…?"

"I… can try… Just sit there and let me think." I concentrated and I could see my blueness interwoven within his human strands. They were also a lot finer than when I put them on him. And there's a lot more of them too. "It's really worked its way in you! It wasn't like that before."

"After I absorbed the scent, I may have tried to absorb your aura too."

Somehow that thought really bothered me. Quickly I held a hand over Yu, urged one of my threads out and it disappeared into my finger. One down, a million to go. "Yeah, I can do it. But you've got it so mashed up it's gonna take a while."

"No problem, I brought a book." He sat back and started reading.

"But I'll be late for P.E."

"If it takes that long, you will finish it later." He replied nonchalantly.

"Why did you send me the flower? And the perfume?" I asked.

"It was intended as a gift to welcome you to the school. And I've been given to understand that perfume is a suitable gift for girls." He frowned, "Did that displease you? Have I been misinformed?"

"The information is not wrong. But," I looked at him, "you know I make my home with a thousand shapeshifters, right? The same shapeshifters whose sense of smell is a hundred times better than ours. So, ask yourself this, how do you think a perfume that sticks around for a hundred days would do to them?"

"Ahhh, I see… I may have been too rash, perhaps..." He paused, "In my youth, some may have judged me impetuous."

"In your youth?" I laughed, "You're still a youth, and still impetuous."

"It may be that you are right, Julie Olsen…" He sighed, "I had not thought beyond the fact that a present from me would bring you happiness."

"I appreciate the thought, really. So thank you, Yu." I said, "But as Kate, my mother, has always said, 'Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.' "

"Yes… that bears some deliberation…" He turned away and returned his attention to his book.

"What's with the book?" I asked, "I see you reading it all the time."

"I'm not reading it... I'm writing in it."

"Really? Where's your pen?"

He sighed, held it up to me and, amazingly, as I stared at it, words were appearing on the blank page.

"That's is so frikking awesome!" I said, "What language is it? Wait -" Hmmm, block characters, not runic, nor anything recognisable, lemme think "- It's Chinese!"

"Of course, I'm translating an older text into modern Chinese for Gendun."

"What original? I don't see anything here."

"I have it in memory. It doesn't exist anymore - but I had managed to look at a few volumes."

"What happened to the rest?"

"I do not know - I was not able to read beyond the first part."

"What happened?"

"I... I was taken away... imprisoned."

"Why? For what?"

"For destroying the book."

"Wha..?" I sputtered, "You read it, and then destroyed it?"

"Yes." He nodded sadly.

"Can you tell me what happened?"

"Perhaps another time, the story is quite lengthy. You have to meet your friends in class now." He gestured towards Brook and Barka who were walking towards us.

"OK, yeah, right, you'll tell me after?"

"We shall continue here, and you can finish removing your aura as well."

"We've got a deal!"

= = =

"What WERE you doing?" Whispered Brook, "You picking lint off him?" I suppose it could look like that, me pawing at imaginary noodles in the air.

"Cooties." I said. That got a snicker, which stopped when Yu looked up.

"You told him he has cooties? You must want to die young! Although," Barka grinned, "I once saw a video of baboons grooming each other, and you looked like you were doing that… Do you eat the nits too?" He led the way back, still giggling.

"Hey, Barka, eat this!" I threw a silver sphere at him and it fanned open, sending sparks all over him.

"Ow, ow, dammit, ow, it hurts!"

"Be careful who you insult!"

"Geez, remind me never to show you a trick!" He paused, "Oh, wait, you shouldn't be able to do that!"

"Sometimes, if I get irritated enough, I can do it more than once." I smiled. There, let him worry about that!

"No, I mean the magic is down, there's nothing..." He held up a hand - a mere flicker manifested itself, "nothing!"

"Ahh, just a fluke..." I said, "residual stuff... from hanging around gods." I frowned and shook my head, trying to remember something that Yu had said...

"Oh and Sheila says she'll be at the range while tech is up."

"Great, I'll meet her there then."

"We'll meet you back here after."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

(Note: the release of Ilona Andrews' eighth book in the series, _'Magic Breaks'_, necessitated wholesale changes in this story, I hope after the rewrites it is still coherent and entertaining!)

Gym at the academy is mandatory, but very much a free-format period, besides the usual sports, one can choose from self-defence, martial arts, weapons training and firearms. The last two were optional but strongly suggested for high-school level students.

The med mage was supervising the working out - logical, since normally most of her patients would be the result of gym. She was puzzled my "fragrance" had vanished so quickly, so I told her that Yu had magically taken it all off me, which, in a way, he did. I told her I was going to the range and she noted it on her pad.

I went down the wide stairs to the cavernous basement level. The space under the gym was the size of a football field. Half of it was taken up by a 50 yard square of packed dirt where the martial arts was taught. It's square, but, for some reason, it's called the Ring.

Sheila was on one side watching a pair of guys grappling, mostly muy-tai fighting. One of the boys was Toby from the Atlanta pack. He had yet to change into his wolf form, but, judging from the amount of lupe-green flowing in him, he was getting close. He would need constant training to allow him control of the super-reflexes and strength once he finds his creature. He managed a smile and a nod in my direction while tossing his opponent to the dirt.

"The Range-master says magic will be back any time now, so no sense going the range now," Sheila said to me, "Want to do some hand work with me?" She meant hand-powered, non-tech weapons.

"Sure." I nodded and followed her to the changerooms.

"What do we start with?" Sheila asked while she got into her sweats. She has this amazingly ripped body that came with a fully functioning six-pack.

"What are your weapons?"

"I haven't any." She admitted, "I thought you could help me pick one out."

"OK, let's go see what they have."

We went into the Ring's armory, a room lined with racks of sharpened weapons, from sabers and epees to broadswords and scimitars. Another rack held daggers, throwing knives, bolos and shirukens. Next to that were long weapons: spears, javelins and halberts, including, at the end, a selection of wooden staves, from nunchuks, to canes, to the Japanese short staff and finally, the long staffs. I stopped there and picked out one for her and one for me.

"Broom-sticks?" Sheila asked, "You fight with these things?"

"This is a bo, this one's made from red oak strips but it could be rattan as well. It's the best weapon to get started with." I leaned on my staff and, just as Kate had so many months ago, explained, "Their reach is better than most weapons, but they look totally innocent, so no one will expect this…" I whipped mine up and stopped it an inch from her face. "Just now, my pose told you I'm relaxed and not a threat, but I could've hit every major joint on your body, not to mention doing worse if I'd smashed your throat." Kate would be so proud to hear me parrot her words. "Plus they're double-ended," I executed a high sweep-block and bumped the opposite end on her butt, "so your enemy has to worry more. Of course they're really useful when going on long hikes too!"

We went out to the Ring and Sheila made some energetic lunging attacks, using the bo two-fisted like a long kendo sword.

"Unless you're trying to disarm your opponent, avoid smashing with the staff, it's much too easy for him to use your momentum against you." I motioned for her to repeat her move, blocked the strike and followed up with a cross whip against her ribs. "Once I've deflected your strike, both your hands are stuck out of position and you're wide open for the follow through attack."

We went through the different grips, the straight thrust and the high and low blocks. With Sheila's weight work and the karate training, she picked things up quickly. Barka came down to warn us about the magic coming back. Brook and Ashlyn had followed and they watched us.

"I spent a month on the oar blocks before Kate was satisfied with it, and that was a minimum of an hour every day!" I told Sheila, "You're in better shape but I'd still give the basic moves a couple of week before moving on."

In the middle of our next set of kick-lunge exercises, the tech abruptly faded, and the overhead lights went dark. In the subdued fey-globe lighting, I showed Sheila some twirling exercises she could do for wrist and arm strength and called an end to the workout.

We went for a quick wash by enchanted hot water, and were soon joined by the shooters from the range when their guns no longer worked. They were frustrated but they had had some warning. We were all aware that if the tech had died the moment the gun fired, the half-burned powder would foul the entire mechanism, calling for a few solid hours of stripping and cleaning before the gun could be re-used.

Out in the Ring, the weres and other transforming creatures were still hard at their training in the darkened arena. They only needed to eat once a day so, while we had dinner, they had an extra hour for sparring before Study period. And, most of them see perfectly fine in the dark.

"Are you coming with us to meet with Yu?" Sheila asked. Ashlyn had a natural fear of fire, so we had been trying to get her to accept Yu Fong, who can transform into a fire-breathing red dragon.

"The Magic's up, I have to work on the Tree." Ashlyn said it like that, with a capital "T", but we already knew which one she meant.

"What is it that do you do there?" I asked, following her back towards the maze.

"I meditate - to guide the energies."

"Energies?"

"Magical, and Technological energies." She amended. "From the big ley-lines." Ley-lines are age-old streams of concentrated natural magic, blasting at about 100mph from ley-point to ley-point, arrow-straight and unstoppable, even when the Tech was up.

"What will that do?"

"I'm trying to get their energies focused in on the tree, then the flows can be better controlled."

"In what way?"

"Master Gendun can explain it better, but basically it could mean fewer big Magic flare-ups. Like, just now, the Tree smoothed out the conflicting energies for a more orderly transition." The flare-ups are bad, bad news; they can instantly change a pet into a 200lb hell-hound with an appetite for human flesh, or cause a long dormant demon to wake and start making more little demons. So fewer flare-ups would definitely be a good thing.

"Yeah," added Barka, "I knew by the fluctuations the change was coming, but usually there are some wild spikes before things settle, but this time, nothing - it was like a switch, off one moment, then on. No fuss at all. That's the Tree doing it?"

Ashlyn nodded, "We're making progress slowly, but we're learning to handle the energies better. But for now it only affects the small area around the school."

"How far along are you?"

"Maybe a tenth of the way. Perhaps a bit more." Ashlyn said, "It's a very long term thing."

As Ashlyn turned to go, I stopped her, "Wait, wait, one more question - how long have you and Gendun been doing this?"

"We've been working on it since he started the school, fifteen years."

I gave her a long blink, "Whoa, does that mean that you... and the Tree..."

"The Tree, and I were created for this purpose. Yes." She waved jauntily to us and disappeared behind the hedges.

"Okaaay..." We looked at each other. "Is it just me, or are we all having the same weird dream?"

"That takes a bit of getting used to." Barka nodded.

"Dream or not, good thing you have a god conveniently close by for some answers!" Brook pointed at Yu, still seated at the bench beside of the entrance.

"Do you know what Ashlyn is doing?" I asked as we approached.

"Somewhat. I'll give you my understanding if you, Julie Olsen, would continue what you had agreed to do."

"I'm on it..." I sat next to him and, not wanting to start any baboon jokes, held my hands on my lap and concentrated on pulling the blue stuff back to me.

Yu put on his professorial face and continued. "As you no doubt know, the switch from Technology to Magic was extremely violent. Within weeks of the first Change, most of our society collapsed and we've been rebuilding since. And every few weeks, we get the big flare-ups; Magic erupts and destroys more of what man has built. But the same unbridled Magical power runs through the world, every day, we've all seen it and we call them Ley-lines."

"But they are useful - we use them to travel and to move goods everywhere!"

"Quite. And Gendun believes that they are like metaphysical faults where Magic and Technology run close to each other. Somehow they are feeding on each other, but at the same time, creating more and more tension, which culminates in the flare-ups. There are historical records that say these para-physical eruptions could last for upwards of 300 years."

"Then what happens?"

"Then, theoretically, technology fades enough that magic will become a stable force that can be used to build rather than destroy."

"And until then, we're looking at flare-ups all the time?"

"It is likely... When Tech took over a few millenia ago, we had decades-long wars, droughts, extreme weathers and plagues." Yu confirmed, "Hence Gendun's big dream. He believes that by harnessing and controlling the raw power of the ley-lines, the Magic can be 'tamed,' in a manner of speaking, to be more adaptable, more malleable to our needs."

"What exactly does Gendun want to do?"

"He wants to link the major ley-lines in Atlanta to each other, through Ashlyn. On the map, if you extend the ley-points of the Savannah, Richmond, Columbia and other major lines, they all end in this area." He waved at the vicinity of the Tree.

"So the school's location was not an accident?"

"No, it was specifically chosen..."

"Wait, was the name of the school specifically chosen as well?"

"You could say that. This location is the meeting point of seven ley-lines, the highest concentration in the U. S."

"How does Gendun know it'll work?"

"There have been similar efforts with positive results. And we are noticing encouraging signs."

"But Ashlyn said that it took fifteen years to go only a tenth of the way, wouldn't that mean a hundred and fifty years to get it finished?" I said, showing off my arithmetic skills!

"Ah, she was, I believe, speaking of what she has accomplished in terms of bringing all seven lines together. Don't forget that ten of those fifteen years were spent cultivating the Tree and Ashlyn to be able to recognise and work with the energy-lines."

"So... five years times ten is still fifty."

"Yes, it has taken all this time to get to this point, but we are expecting to make contact with the Richmond line very soon now. Once that energy is available, we'll likely reach the others quicker."

"You keep saying 'we.' How are you involved?"

"My role, once the pathways are achieved, is to act as a buffer for the magic... a reservoir, if you will..."

"There, you're clean," I told him, as the last of my blue 'aura' threads drifted back to me. I was surprised that it did not take as long as I had feared, but my skill at handling the threads had improved with practice. "Is it the same as storing magic you mentioned before?" I asked, "what exactly does it involve?"

"I don't think I can explain it..." He frowned, "I'm not exactly certain how it works... I can feel it flowing into me..."

"Are you doing it now?" He nodded and I focused on the semi-transparent stuff that is Magic around him. It looked like Yu was right, it touched him and was absorbed into... No wait, the Silvery god-powered strands were doing it - like they were eating the Magic, getting larger in the process. So...

"Julie! Julie!" Barka was yelling in my face. "Are you alright?"

"Y-yeah," I blinked, "just thinking..."

"You looked all spacey-like!"

"Besotted is a better word," smiled Yu, "there's no shame in it, many are affected by being too close to my presence."

"Ha! You wish!"

The dinner bell went and we stood to get washed up.

"Julie Olsen, a moment," Yu stopped me, "What I said, it is not conceit," he looked intently at me, "Think about it, gods exist purely on the will of their followers. Their prayers and sacrifices provide the necessary sustenance for their deities to exist. So it is only natural that a god has to be able attract a fair share of followers or he'd fade away in no time!"

"Yeah, you'd promised to tell me your story..."

"Ah, perhaps we can continue after...?"

"No, she can't. Julie has Algebra. With me." Brook said with almost demonic glee.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

My special tutoring session with Brook continued, as it became obvious I was just throwing out guesses at most of the Algebra assignments. It became somewhat more tolerable when Ashlyn joined us - misery and company and all that. Naturally Sheila became a member too.

Brook had become much more gracious when 'call me Gendun' publicly thanked her at assembly for her "leadership in establishing a peer support incentive," with a few extra credits thrown in, I have no doubt.  
It also seemed to be helping too, as I actually got a passing grade in the weekly test. Afterward, I shared a "We passed algebra!" dance with Ashlyn, who scored a remarkable 72. Then, since magic had come up during the test, I headed off to Chem alone while she went to meditate with her Tree.

Before I could make it into the lab, Brook grabbed me and dragged me to the room across the hall, to a table where Barka and another boy were sitting. "Tech is down, so no Chem. They have Alchemy instead, which I can teach you in an hour." She said dismissively, "Which means Practical Magic for you now. And you're with us - we traded our witch to them," she pointed to a group of four, two boys and two girls, "they lost Lisa the Dud so we gave them Tonia the Witch, since we still have Jeffrey here, who's a wizard, of sorts. But now we also have you!" She grinned.

"I don't know if I'm gonna be any use to you, all I can do is..."

"Copy magic, yeah, yeah," Brook waved it off, "but that must mean that somewhere in you, whether you realize it or not, something is telling you when and even how magic works! I mean, how else can you duplicate it?"

"Maybe... even so, how will it help you?"

"I'm pretty much a zero in the natural magic department, so I have to use spells. Right now I'm working on the Book of Chants, and, let me tell you, it's just a hodge-podge of nonsensical sounds thrown together like yesterday's lunch. I'm hoping you can tell if I'm doing it right or not. On the other hand, Barka here can throw gobs of magic around without trying." She looked at him, "He just can't DO anything useful with it, is all."

"Yeah," He nodded, "Jeff and Tonia had been showing me the magic light and I was real close to getting it." He shook his head. "It's just that their magic's so different - it's hard to figure out what they use to get the brightness." He looked at Jeff, who made a gesture with his hand and a blob of yellow light appeared. He grinned proudly at me.

"Yeah, like that," Barka said. He held his hand up and a feeble glow came from it. "I tried to slip something in to make it brighter, and I got this..." The ball in his palm changed into his trademark lightning nimbus.

"Okaay... And Jeff, show me yours again?" I watched as a yellow light grew in his hand. The difference between the two lights, I realized, was that Barka had to urge the magic to change form in his hand, Jeff's light came out ready-made.

"Jeff, OK, turn it off and do it again." And I was right, the light appeared virtually instantly.

"Hold that..." Then to Barka, "Do your glow again." I urged, "Without the sparks." I waited as Barka rolled another pale shimmery blob in his hand.

My turn. I focused and slowly, a small light formed in my hand, yellow at first, but slowly becoming whiter. I moved it closer to Barka and concentrated in pushing my blob to mix with his.

"Okay, can you feel what I'm doing?"

"Yeah... Kinda.." Barka said slowly. The glow in his palm grew, brighter and brighter still, until it became a blinding white glare.

"Turn down the magic, it's hurting my eyes!"

"Wow!" Barka said, as he played with the glob, but at a less painful intensity. "Wow! What the heck did you do?"

I pointed at the lanterns on the wall, "I mixed the fey-lights with Jeff's light and added it to yours." I said, "Now turn it off and see if you can put in the stuff I used to make it shine again."

Jeff wanted me to help him with his light too, but, although I could add the fey-light to make it a bit brighter, he was not able to do it on his own. I could see how the magic appeared when he thought, 'Light!' But could not figure out how it was done or where it came from.

"It's too bad he can't just can't say something like, 'Bright light,' and make it brighter!" Brook said, noting the dejected look on Jeff's face, "or maybe just think 'BIG light!' " Just then, the feeble blob in Jeff's hand doubled in size, and brilliance.

"Hey, that's it! Just think 'Big light!' " Jeff danced around, getting high-fives. Soon we discovered that he could also think 'Big Green light' with the appropriate results. With the boys egging each other on, and Brook shouting encouragement their efforts were visibly improving.

"Look!" Barka cried, "I can make it move!" He strained and the light went an inch in the air. He sighed, "But that's all it does."

"What you should do is start with a small ball, float that in the air, then add the rest after." I could sense that his own magic was tying the light down, the harder he tried to push, the firmer the magic held on to it.

"Cool! That's done the trick! Thanks Julie!"

"That's exactly what I imagined you could do!" Brook crowed. "You're gonna be my ticket into the Mage's Guild when I write my Annotated Almanac of Thaumatology!" She handed me a thick book, "But first read this." She passed it over, it weighed a good 5-lbs and crammed with tiny words.

"What's in it?"

"It's a collection of old magical spells from the school library."

"Really? So I'm off algebra now?"

"No." She smiled. "Why should it?"

"God, you're enjoying this way too much." I told her, "Have you learned any of this?"

"Learn? I can recite about 30 of the so-called spells, but," Brook shrugged, "none of them seem to have any effect, let alone with the intended results."

"Hey look, there's a section on 'Dispelling Darkness!' "

"Yeah good luck, that's what we went through first, hoping for some hints to help Barka here."

"Ahh... So saying 'Bring forth lightness and luminance' fifteen times didn't do the trick?"

"It's supposed to channel your innate magely skills to do your bidding..." She sighed.

"So much for our innate magely skills, I guess. Oh look, this one starts with 'Fee Fi Fo Fum'" I started leafing through the book.

"Good, have at it." Brook said as the class bell rang, "Me and the boys are going to show off their new lights at homeroom!"

I gave her a small wave goodbye, distracted by a spell in the book. It was just a jumble of nonsensical words, but each time I looked at it, it seemed to make a buzzing noise in my head. And, when I tried to sound out some of the words, I could feel magic being shifted. It was a hit and miss process, sometimes I could feel things happening as soon as I made the sounds, but other times, nothing.

I stopped and thought about it, since the words were just gobbledygook, the way they were sounded out must be the key. Which meant that I had to try and duplicate the original writer's pronunciations and accent to get the words to do what they were meant to. But things DID happen when I said the combinations right and it was giving me some idea of how the magic can be moved and occasionally made to combine into something else. And pretty soon I was able to get a little spitball of light when I recited the first few lines of the spell.

I was still staring at the same floating light bubble when Sheila stuck her head in the door. The light appeared when I said the chant properly and it even looked similar to Barka's version, but I was having trouble keeping it going. Every minute or so, the glow would dissipate and I had to keep remaking the magic for it to stay working. Feeding it the stuff from the wall lanterns made it bigger and brighter but, as soon as I stopped, it started to fade. Somehow, Barka could keep his light as long as he wished, but then I was still figuring out the second half of the spell which did not seem to do anything useful.

"You made it from a spell? That's just amazing!" Sheila said.

"No, not really, I can't get it to stay lit!"

"Don't you worry - you'll figure it out! But Master Gendun's sent me to get you. He wants to see us now at the maze!" Sheila led the way out, collecting the Bo staff she had left leaning against the door and began an overhand butterfly twirl. Since our sessions at gym, she had been doing the exercises whenever she had some free time. So, with me lugging the old book of rhymes and following a respectable three feet behind her, we headed down the corridor.

"As you probably know, Ashlyn has been gradually building up her link to the Richmond Line, and it has already shown a marked effect in tempering the effects of the shifts," Gendun explained when we joined him. Yu was there as well, but he kept a discreet distance away from Ashlyn, who got fidgety when he was too close.

"Along with expanding the Lei-line connection, Ashlyn is also busy increasing the storage capacity of her Tree, but it will take some time before it can be made to handle all the power." Gendun continued, "so we will divert this magical energy to help with another project." He gestured at Yu, "Your friend Yu Fong has been helping us in deciphering some ancient herbal text, and he and Dr. Tessect have been building up our herbal garden with this knowledge.

"Ashlyn is going to channel the excess energy to support the plants in our garden. And this is where you come in. I will show you where I want the energy to be distributed, and, Yu Fong, who apparently can sense your location, will then direct Ashlyn to build her magic conduits towards you." I blinked, Yu TOLD him he could locate me? The nerve! And why don't I have a say in this?

Gendun turned, motioning me to follow him. I paused to give Yu a piece of my mind, but then Master Gendun glanced back at me, smiling beatifically and all the curses I was about to blast Yu with disappeared into a pretty little rainbow. I could only manage a glare at Yu as I passed him, but I was determined to find something totally evil to inflict on him from my book of spells.

Gendun led the way into the school, past the dining hall and into the kitchen area. I'd never been inside there, but it was easily four, five times the size of the main kitchen at the Shapeshifter's Keep. With the evening meal just an hour away, the twenty or so kitchen staff were scurrying around getting things ready.  
I followed Gendun through a large set of doors at the back, which led us into a large open-air area, surrounded on three of its sides by a tall fence. Through another gate in the fence we followed a path with a sign saying 'Garden.' Dr. Tessect was waiting there and she joined us.

We passed through a stand of trees and I found myself in the middle of maybe a hundred rows of plants and herbs, stretching away and merging with a large orchard of fruit trees at the far end. "Wow, this... This is all ours?"

"Yes," Gendun nodded with obvious pride, "We grow enough that we hold a mini market every Saturday morning to trade our surplus for other goods. With the influx of the extra energy, I'm highly optimistic of even better yield."

Dr. Tessect led us a few rows down and stopped, "Can you signal your friend that I'd like the conduit to go here?"

"He's not my friend!" I hissed through gritted teeth.

"Oh, I think you're quite mistaken!" Gendun laughed softly.

"Uh, let me concentrate!" I said quickly, so that he wouldn't be tempted to zap me with his happy ray again. I turned to face back at the school and tried to 'see' where Yu Fong would be. I could make out the blue of the kitchen workers bustling about, then, further back, the unmistakable silvery-blue of the maddening godlet. I swear I could almost see the smirk on his face. Not far from him was Ashlyn in her lovely yellow-and-green pastels, and between them, Sheila's human shape.

"Have they started yet?" Gendun asked.

"They... er, not yet..." First, I had to get their attention, but how? Then, pouring all the frustration and malice I felt towards the boy, I focused and screamed in my head, "YU FONG you idiot!"

He must've jumped a foot in the air, and immediately the shape of his red dragon appeared to swirl around him. "Okay, he knows we're here." I said, then, "Oh... oh shit. Uh, there's a problem, something's spooked Ashlyn." I could see by her violently shifting colors how extremely agitated she was. "I'll go back and have Yu meet you here instead."

I rushed back and Sheila was standing in front of Ashlyn, using her Bo against Yu, who was saying, "Stop! Stop! If you stop attacking me, the dragon will go away!" I could see the dragon was only fending off Sheila's blows, but she was relentless in her attack. I had to pause to admire her form, she was good! But her wooden stave would spark each time she struck a blow and it was already smoking from several charred spots.

I stepped in as she straight lunged at Yu and grabbed her, "Stop! It's OK! Stop!" Gradually she stopped fighting and I could pull her back.

"H-he changed into a dragon and was going after Ashlyn!" Sheila panted.

"I'm sorry! I was surprised and my dragon rose to defend me! I'm really sorry!" Yu explained, he closed his eyes and the dragon disappeared back inside.

"It's actually my fault," I told them. "I did something I shouldn't have. I'm sorry to have caused all of this!" I turned to Yu, "Really, I am. But can you please go see Gendun now, and... and I'll talk to you later, OK?" Yu nodded solemnly and walked away.

Sheila was comforting Ashlyn and she looked at me, "What did you do? Fire shot out of his eyes and he flew up. He looked like he was going to flame us!"

"I, er, I sorta screamed in his head..." I grimaced.

"Whoa, you can do that? Too?"

"I didn't know I COULD, until I DID!" I shook my head. "It was a mean thing to do, and I didn't mean to scare you so... Especially you, Ashlyn!"

"S'OK," she smiled at me, totally serene, just as if nothing had happened, but she turned to look sadly at Sheila's half charred Bo, and started stroking her hand over it. Amazingly, the blackened spots faded, then disappeared. And when she handed it back to Sheila, the wood was completely fresh and strong, scar- and char-free. "It knows better now, so it won't burn any more."

We were both staring, "You can do that?"

"Yes, it was just some dumb old oak tree, so I just had to teach it how to avoid getting hurt."

"Ohhhh... Maybe you can teach Julie's Bo the same thing too!"

"Sure!" Ashlyn smiled, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, to make wood learn to avoid being damaged.

"Julie Olsen..." A voice whispered in my head, "we're ready now!" Instantly, goose-bumps went all over me.

"Oh lord!" I hugged my arms around me.

"You OK?" Sheila asked, "you just got kinda pale."

"Ughhh! The damn Yu just talked in my head!"

"This is wonderful!" The smug bastard was giggling, "I did not know I could do this!"

"Enough," I thought back at him, "this is totally creeping me out! I said I was sorry, but don't make me regret it!"

"Ahh, apologies for the intrusion; I was somewhat elated at discovering this ability! But, ahh... Gendrun would like you to begin..." His voice faded, but just like the fabled Cheshire cat, his infuriating smile lingered.

"They're ready for us now," I said to Ashlyn, "about 200 feet that way."

She nodded, then sat facing the direction I was pointing. Magic flooded around and into her, and slowly, a pale green tendril reached out from her Tree, inching its way towards the Garden. It traveled about 30 feet, then stopped. I could see Ashlyn straining but the magic root did not budge.

I sat down next to her, "What's wrong?"

"Something's blocking me... Cannot move." She sighed, "We were afraid of this, it's happened to the other links too."

I did a quick estimate, "It's probably just the foundation of the school building. Can you go deeper?"

"N-no, I'm well below that, but any lower... there is a boundary. I don't know how to explain it, it's like a raging river. It sucks the magic up and it... it just disappears."

"OK, take it easy, there's no rush. I'll just let Master Gendun know." I thought at Yu and told him we were going up against some obstacle.

I could sense Ashlyn shifting the root, trying to uncover an opening, but 20 minutes later, she had not made any headway. By then Gendun had returned and the dinner bell had rung. He suggested we stop and try again the next day from another angle. As with the other links, if they came up against a blockage like this, the only thing to do was to start in a slightly different direction and hope for better luck. That explained why the links were taking so long to finish!

Ashlynn was quite down all through dinner, so Sheila suggested I show her my light spell and that seemed to cheer her up a bit. It was understandable, because of her fear of fire, that any light that did not threaten to ignite her was a good thing. Quite a few others came by to see it work, even some of the fae and forest-folk from the vegetarian end of the dining hall, who seldom wanted anything to do with us meat-eating barbarians.

"It's not a finished spell," I kept telling them, "it only lasts a few minutes before it fades!" But the interest was there, and, according to Brook, there was also a big business in the manufacture of fae-lights, which made recovering the rest of the spell a priority. Then after dinner, I had to give them all a quick lesson in creating the spell.

"No - the 'gwerr' is longer, and stretch the 'g' out even more!" I was getting frustrated just watching them struggle with the spell, but I could now see the advantage of my sensate sight. A little difference in the sound or even the emphasis would totally nullify the rest. But eventually, a few managed to produce a light, and they took over the teaching.

"OK, now show me the rest of the spell!" Brook urged.

"Here... This is as far as I got," I pointed, "that got me the light. Then, starting here, the line that has 'chewy gnat' in it, does nothing at all."

Brook stared at it a bit, "Hmmmm. It's not 'chewy gnat!' It's 'ch,' space, 'yw,' space, 'gn,' then 'at!' "

"Well, that's 'chewy gnat' to me!"

"The weird thing is the 'yw,' not English, definitely not English..." Her eyes lit up, "It's Gaelic! Has to be!"


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Brook dragged me over to Gendun, who doubled as our Study Hall monitor, "Sir, I need to get a dictionary from the library! Julie's spell? I think it's written in Gaelic!" At his nod she dashed off but he held up a hand when I turned to follow. "Julie? A moment please."

"Yes sir..."

"We have received word that your guardians have been called away. Which means, until we hear otherwise, you will be staying here at the school."

"Do you know where they went?" I asked, feeling a chill up my spine. "And for how long?" The last out-of-town trip, they were away for a whole three months, while I waited by my friend Maddie's mangled body, hoping and praying they find the medicine she so desperately needed. They were successful, but at a terrible cost. Most of them had been badly injured, and some good people never made it back.

"I believe they are still in the U. S., but the message from the keep did not provide any more details. I'm given to understand it would only be a week, ten days at most." He spread his hands and gave me a sympathetic look, we all knew traveling any distance is extremely unpredictable, if not worse. "And they're quite capable of taking care of themselves..." Gendun offered, as if sharing my thoughts.

Which reminded me, "Err, Sir, I need to, I mean, I promised to speak with Yu. To ... to apologize to him, for earlier!" I said.

"You can have ten minutes." Gendun nodded again.

I'd not seen Yu since our flare-up at the Garden earlier but, just by concentrating on it, I could tell where he was. So I headed directly for the stone bench in front of the maze where he was placidly sitting and working on his book.

"Yu..." I started, then faltered when he looked up. Something about him in the moonlight made me feel like I was teetering on the edge of a hole. A dark, bottomless hole.

"Ah... Julie Olsen... I... I..." Yu started, then scrambled up, "y-you are here..."

"Dammit, Yu, stop doing your mind tricks on me!"

"It's not me! Julie Olsen!" He stepped back, holding his hands up, "Or not just me - assuming you are what I think you are."

I stared at him, stunned, how on earth did he find out? "And just what exactly do you think I am?"

"You're a god, of course!" He declared, beaming with the genius of his statement.

"Ah... Y-you think I'm a-a god..." The relief of not being found out made me want to giggle out loud.

"After careful consideration, I have arrived at the conclusion that there can be no other reason for me to feel such attraction to you!" Yu continued with grave seriousness, "you do not possess great beauty, and you are thin to the point of malnourished. Then there's that hostile demeanor and acerbic tongue... Wait, what are you doing?"

"I'm looking for a pad so I can write down all the godly words to teach my followers with, so that they, too, can become acerbically tongued with the hostile demeanor!"

"That's not..." He paused, "right, I forgot to mention the biting sarcasm." He put a hand up when I stuck my tongue out at him and turned to go, "But, how else can you explain why I think of you constantly?"

"Ah... you think... you DO?"

"Yes," he nodded, "I am at a loss to understand how I can be so infatuated with one person!"

"Even besotted?"

"Perhaps, a little." He nodded, "so you admit you're a god?"

"S-sure..." I said, anything BUT sure with the millions of emotions going through me, in all direction, all at once.

"I knew it," he crowed, "I KNEW it!"

"Stop it already! I can't understand how you need an explanation for your own feelings!" I told him, "why can't you just say you enjoy being with someone who's not afraid of you and not afraid of telling you the truth!"

"Perhaps... but I am also merely stating the truth. I have not felt this way with anybody but you, Julie Olsen - even other gods failed to impact me so."

"You've met other gods?"

"Yes, but of course they were all much older... decades, if not centuries older..."

"Oh sure... I hope you're not pulling a prank on me, Yu Fong, or whatever your name is. I will not be amused if I find out this is all a big joke!" I snarled and glared at him.

"Uhh," Yu took a step back. He blinked a long blink at me, looking shaken, "You're a god for certain!" He held up his hands in surrender, "I have not lied to you, Julie Olsen, in all that I have told you. I know you have powers few others understand, and there is talk that your mother is some form of a celestial being sent to do battle against the Tower Master of ancient lore!"

"Pfft," I waved it off, since I wasn't sure I understand that mess at all. "Just keep the god thing to yourself, but I want you to understand that you have been warned!" I wasn't sure I could threaten him and ask him to keep a secret all at the same time, but right then my head was buzzing around like crazy, and I was more worried about it falling off. "I had one guy lie to me before," I added, "and now he's bound for eternity in an underground cave."

"No, no, I do not lie. What I say is the truth, Julie Olsen, you will understand better once you realize my origins."

"You've said that a few times before, and I'm still waiting to hear it!" With a nod he sat and gestured to the seat beside him. "Ahh, but I can't now," I amended, "Gendun's only given me ten minutes to tell you I am really, really sorry about screaming in your head this afternoon..."

"Thank you, and I also want to apologize for reacting so rashly and scaring your friends, but, nevertheless," he grinned, looking, for once, like a real eighteen year old, "I learned how to converse directly to you!"

"Yeah, there's that." I nodded and continued. "But there is another thing that was bothering me, maybe you can explain..." He just looked at me, "When Ashlyn's tunnel was blocked this afternoon, she mentioned that she was having the same problem with her other links too."

"Yes, she has encountered similar blockages elsewhere."

"But what about the Richmond line? She got through there didn't she?"

"Yes, but in a rather haphazard manner. She still could not locate a clear passage and the opening she managed had to be deep, in an unstable area very close to the... the..."

"...What she calls the Boundary?"

"Yes... boundary, but it's not." He spread his hands, "Again, I have no words. The ancients call it Szishwei, meaning, roughly, the Sea of Nothing. Magically, it seems to move in all directions at once, and there's no known record of anyone or anything ever returning from it. In any event, the Richmond link is clearly a tenuous one, if the 'Boundary' shifts just a fraction, it will be destroyed."

"So the only solution is to keep jabbing at the blockage until she finds a way through?"

"Yes, that is an apt description."

"Do you know what it is that's stopping her?"

"It appears to be a certain kind of rock... but there is not much known about it."

"Do you think it would help if I got a piece as a sample? So someone can analyze it, or something?"

Yu frowned, "It definitely cannot hurt, but how do you propose to obtain the sample?"

"I had watched Dr. Tessect do something like that," when she took a chunk of Yu's flower-perfume present off me to study, "and I think I can try it here..."

I closed my eyes and tried to visualize the spot where Ashlyn had trouble before and, using the same threads as had the Medmage, burrowed into the rock. I knew I had hit the correct spot because there was a definite resistance to my efforts.

I'm not sure how long it took, but I found that by wrapping an entire chunk in the magic threads, I could kind of 'slide' it out of the boulder, which is what it was, then up through the dirt and into my hand. I had to admit it was somewhat of an anticlimax when, for all the effort, it wasn't even warm.

"Well, that was disappointing!" I sighed. It was also small, no bigger than a .45 cartridge. I looked up and Yu was glaring at me, then the rock, then up at me again. "I KNOW it's not much, but that's all I can do!" I said hotly.

"No, no, NO! You've done very well!" I didn't even have time to say 'Thank you!' when he suddenly grabbed my hand and dashed inside.

He dragged me in front of Master Gendun, who was having a discussion with Brook over a huge volume.

"Master Gendun, I must talk to you, now!" Yu Fong said, then turn to Brook and me, "Can you and Brook find Ashlyn and make sure this is the rock she's been having problems with? Please?"

"S-sure!" I scurried off, Brook and her big book in tow. Yu was already involved in a frantic, arm-waving discussion with Gendun.

"What the hell was that?" Brook wanted to know, "what did you do to the poor boy this time?"

"Whaddaya mean, 'poor boy?' Out of nowhere, he started freaking and dragged me here! I think he's got some sort of brain damage! Oh, right, assuming he HAS a brain at all!" I snickered at the thought.

"Yeah, then why do you keep sneaking looks back at him all the time?"

"Do not! Ah, there's Ashlyn! And no talking about him!" I warned her.

Ashlyn and Sheila were in the small room we used for our 'peer-to-peer' tutoring. They were with a fae girl, the first person to learn the spell, I remembered. Then, as I tried to focus on her face, it started wavering. I blinked and looked again, and my eyes started to water. Glamor! The girl was using glamor on us!

"Hi! This is Rhe'en." Ashlyn introduced us. "She's helping us with the spell. She's really good at it too!"

"Can you stop doing that?" I squinted at her, "it's making my eyes go funny!"

"I-I can't help it!" She stammered.

"Rhe'en is a Spriggan!" Sheila elbowed me. "Don't be mean!"

"Yeah," Brook kicked me from the other side. "Leave the girl be!"

"Ugh, I'll stop if you will! What IS the problem with you two?" I said, glaring at them.

I turned back to Ashlyn, "Master Gendun wants us to find out if this is the same rock that's blocking you!"

She touched it gingerly and shrank back. "Yes, it's the same stuff."

"OK, let's go tell them!" Brook grabbed my elbow and hustled off with me.

"OK, OK! Stop trying to freaking rip my arm off!"

"Rhe'en is a very nice girl, so be good to her!" Brook slowed when she noticed the blank look on my face, "Spriggans are usually very reclusive and totally harmless; they can't even fight to defend themselves, but if threatened, they show their true faces and they're supposed to be so hideous and revolting that people faint when they see it!"

"Oh... alright, I get it now. But her glamor is pretty nasty too!"

"Whatever, just don't be mean to her!" She warned me just before delivering me to Gendun and Yu, now joined by an equally animated Medmage.

"I told you, I can do it, but I need to see it!" She protested.

"Show Ms. Tessect the sample, Julie." Gendun said.

I held it out, but she barely glanced at it before going on, "I don't mean that! I know what I'm supposed to do, but I still need to see where it's coming from!"

"Can you explain to the doctor how you found the rock blocking Ashlyn?" Gendun said to me.

"I, er, just followed the root from Ashlyn's Tree to where it had stopped."

"Can you do that?" Gendun turned to her.

"No," she shook her head, "at least extremely unlikely. I still need full visuals before doing something like that!"

I looked at Yu, "I'm kinda foggy here, what's happening?"

"When you used Dr. Tessect's technique to remove a piece from the boulder, I saw it as a possible solution to our current situation."

"Uhmm..." I blinked, as it slowly dawned on me, "ah, you mean by using it to dig a hole through the block? But it'll be an awfully small hole! It's not even a half inch!"" I held up the slender cylinder I had managed.

"The Richmond connection is even smaller than this - and you can see the energy that is available!"

"But the real question is, Julie, if the Doctor cannot manage it, can you do it again?"

"Er, maybe once more, then I'm pretty sure the imprint will disappear." I hated to lie to them, but I couldn't risk exposing my sensate abilities.

"But you can recharge your imprint, can't you?" Brook suggested, "I mean, if the Doctor was there to show you how it's done... Again."

"Yeah, yeah, I can do that, I suppose."

"Excellent! That leaves me with deciding which period I can spare you to assist Ashlyn!" Gendun declared.

"Algebra?" I ventured.

Brook burst out laughing and even Gendun cracked a smile. "No, no, I cannot do that, not for someone who's showing such great promise! For now, back to your studies, and I will make arrangements with your teachers." With a curt nod from him, we were dismissed.

"Whew, I thought they'd never stop talking!" Brook said as she led the way back to our room, "Now you can help me complete the spell!" She went to the opened Spell book, and dragged over a hefty tome entitled 'A Compendium of Goidelic Languages.' She pointed at it. "We were checking up the words in the spell, and so far we've decided it's not new, or high Scottish, or Irish... None of those has your 'chewy gnat.' "

"It's Cornish..." Came a timid voice. Rhe'en, who was looking at us from the other side of the table.

"Uhh... Oh right, you're from there aren't you? So you can say the spell for us?"

"Yes, but this line only explains that the next section is to make the light burn for a 'hyarliech', I guess it's a length of time. And the 'gnat' is actually 'ghtat' - the ink must've rubbed off. These lines is to make it brighter, and this part means, 'Say it to unmake spell.' " She fidgeted, "I DID try to sound it out, but it didn't do anything."

"The sounds are not always spot on, sometimes you have to play with it a little." I told her.

"OK! Here's what we're going to do. You say the words, and Julie will tell if you're doing it right." Brook urged, "while I take exquisitely detailed notes. Ha! Mage Guild, here I come! OK, Rhe'en, teach us how to make the light run for a hyarliech!"

With Rhe'en's knowledge of the language, and some feedback from me, it was much easier to piece the various components together. A crowd began to gather, eager to learn each part of the light spell as it was revealed. I was staring too, but I was more curious about how the spell controlled the magic components.

One segment of the spell pushed magic into the light to make it brighter, which I could do already, but the same sequence was used in the part that changed the duration of the spell as well. The trick, it turned out, was to say the line that 'flipped' the light, somewhat like turning it inside-out to my sensate sight, and then all the magic pushed in would be used to make it run longer. But it was very good information - it meant correctly spoken lines always did the same thing, and that magic spells were kind of predictable.

It was a bit after Study period before Gendun finished their discussion, but for a change, nobody complained, and when he dismissed us, we were able to head up to the dorms carrying our own magic-lights.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

I did not sleep well that night, my mind wouldn't stop replaying the conversation with Yu, until the part about digging a tunnel under Atlanta, at least. Then there were running and giggling and flashes of magic light in the hallway. It felt like I had barely closed my eyes when it was time to get up.

I stumbled into the dining hall and had a couple bites of my toast before the assembly bell went. I settled in my seat and was just getting comfortable when I was rudely awakened by a mob of students. Apparently Master Gendun had announced that the day-students could get coaching in the light spell if they were interested. I told them I'd forgotten some words and pointed them in Brook's and Rhe'en's direction before scooting off to homeroom.

I was also counting on an hour of shut-eye in first period but wouldn't you know it, Magic swept in and then I felt the goose bumps brought on by Yu's presence in my mind. He was much more careful this time and started with a small nudge, a sort of clearing of his throat, before saying, "Julie Olsen? Can you come down to the maze? Gendun and Ashlyn are here..." I got up and asked for a pass, which was immediately given - no doubt arranged by our principal.

Ashlyn was again seated on the ground where she had been the last time, and I joined her. I could sense a root reaching out from the Tree. "I have reached the boulder," she confirmed to the others, "and there, the hole is there." That got a smile and a nod from Gendun.

I followed her path down, easing more magic threads in the hole and started wedging it in to free more of the rock out.

After a while, I had another bullet-shaped rock in my hand, but it was even smaller than before, kind of .38 caliber sized.

"Good work, good work!" Master Gendun encouraged. I sat stunned, I had worked harder, but got even less done. Was it true? Was there really an imprint? Did it just vanish? I reached back in the hole and, what the...? I couldn't find my magic threads anymore!

I looked helplessly up and the Medmage stepped forward. Without saying anything she started chanting to create more magic strings. Strange - I had no problems sensing them, and, reaching out, I could move them if I wanted to. So the skill was still there, but why couldn't I find it in the hole? Ahhh...

"Thank you!" I smiled at the Doctor. It was obvious! I had simply used up all the magic in the hole, but there was plenty elsewhere. Actually, an even better source was nearby, sitting right next to me, as a matter of fact.

"Ashlyn, can you feed some magic into the hole?" She nodded, and I could instantly feel the awesome amount of power she controlled. The magic was pure, and delicious! My tiredness vanished as it flooded through me, filling me and beckoning to me. I knew it would obey my slightest whim, one thought and I could make miracles happen. What's one crappy hole when I could make a billion of them? I could carve a tunnel to Australia if I wanted to. The intoxicating power was telling me that this is what a god feels like! Yes! I AM a god! I wanted to tell everyone; I wanted to tell Yu. I looked up and he was staring at me with a frown on his face.

"Are you OK?" He appeared in my head. There was no mistaking the worry in his voice, and some fear too.

Fear? I blinked and closed my eyes. What's wrong with me? I'd never been like this before... not since my friend Maddie and I stole some hard lemonade from Kate's office and drank it all, then I spent the night throwing up.

I was high! High from the amazingly wonderful feast that was Ashlyn's magic! I pulled back, and took a few deep breaths before whispering hoarsely to Ashlyn, "Shut it down, it's too much. I can't handle it." Not without drowning in its tempting and addicting oblivion.

When I was sure I was myself again, I looked up and whispered at Yu, "Thank you, it was kinda close." The relief in his eyes told me everything I needed to know.

"OK, let's start again," I said to Ashlyn, "when I ask, just give me a tenth, no, a hundredth of what you just did. Your stuff is just too fucking good." I shivered just thinking about it, "I don't know how you can do it!"

This time, even though I was much more careful with the power, the hole went quickly, as chunks of rock rained around my feet. Two more 'squirts' of magic from Ashlyn later and I was through with the boulder.

"There's another rock just past this one, but if you move a foot to the left and up two, you'll get past it." I told her.

She tried, but apparently the root can only have so much 'bend' in it, no more than 2 to 3 inches for every foot of travel. Another headache, but not impossible. I thought about it, then asked Yu to walk out to the Garden to show me the spot where we needed to come out of the ground. By gently curving and adjusting my new tunnel for that point, Ashlyn and I wouldn't have to make any awkward repositioning of her root.

It was a couple of hours later, with a few breaks in between for so-called 'recharges,' and Ashlyn had a clear shot the rest of the way.

Gendun rushed us to the Garden to see the results, not that there was anything obvious, but he was almost dancing between the blooms, clearly elated over what appeared to be an answer to the major problem with the lei-lines. There was little doubt the power was getting through - I was getting buzzed just standing there and Yu was almost glowing with it.

He looked at me, frowning, "How are you feeling?"

"The magic was too good, it almost sucked me in..." I whispered to him.

"I'm glad it didn't." He gave me a solemn look, "I don't want to lose my goddess."

"No, I won't ever let it take over like that again. Not ever." I assured him. "How can you not let it affect you? How'd you be able to soak up everything Ashlyn can't handle?"

He thought about it, "Again, I have no words to describe it, but I know which part of me can safely absorb magic, and which cannot."

"Yes... you mentioned something like that before..." I thought about him using his silver threads to 'eat' magic. I looked down at my arm, and, yep, I have the same silver threads too! Just not quite in the same numbers. So...

"Are you alright, Julie?" Gendun stopped his waltz of the flowers to ask.

"She pushed herself quite hard." Yu supplied.

"Yes, you must be tired. I hope you see what you did was excellent - excellent work indeed." He smiled. "You know I appreciate your efforts. Why don't you and Ashlyn take the rest of the morning off and we'll reconvene here after lunch?"

Which really only meant we had an extra 30 minutes or so before lunch to get the dust off our skin and clothes. On the way to the showers I was still trying to figure out how to get the magic to go to the silver threads instead of the blue ones, then I realized something.

"How come you don't look a bit dirty?" I asked Ashlyn, "You were sitting next to me and I've got at least ten pounds of dirt and crap on me!"

"I just made sure they don't stick to me, is all."

"Whuh?" I said.

"The dust and dirt do not belong on me. So they can stay only with my permission, right?" She told me matter-of-factly.

"Sure... It's makes sense when you say it, kinda. Is it like telling the oak how not to get damaged?"

"No, no, it's not like that. Once the oak learns, it'll know to do it, but the dirt, I have to keep chasing it off!"

"Sooooo, I can tell the dirt to get off me too?"

"You should... I don't see why not - you've got enough power!"

"Well, that's good to know... But HOW? Can you do it for me?"

"No, it's your body! YOU have to tell them to get off!"

I turned to the crud on my arms, but no amount of "Get the hell off me!" made me any cleaner. "Maybe I got the hard-of-hearing dirt!"

"No," Ashlyn laughed, "You're just not saying it right, that's all."

"OK, let's see you say it!" I wiped one of my grimy hands on her. "There, now make it..." I stared as the smudge flaked off her arm. "Freaking weird! Do it again, slowly, as slowly as you can!" This time I could see her soft green aura push out, just a little, just enough to dislodge the pieces of dirt.

That seemed simple enough but, by the time the Lunch bell went, all I could manage was more sweat over my grime and to thoroughly impress Ashlyn with my extensive vocabulary of swear-words.

I hurriedly dunked my face and arms in water and we headed for the dining hall.

"Hey that's Rhe'en!" Ashlyn said.

"Yeah, and she's not happy." She was surrounded by her veggie friends from the first seating and I could sense, within her, a dark green flow pulsing madly behind the swirling grey of her glamor.

"STOP IT!" I yelled, "Leave her alone!" I elbowed my way through and pulled her out of the crowd. Ashlyn took her from me and started cooing to her in a soft voice.

"What the hell do you freaking idiots think you're doing?" They took one look at the screaming, filth-encrusted maniac with hair plastered all over her face and, wisely, scattered.

I turned back at Rhe'en, "What the hell happened!" She shrank into Ashlyn's hold, shivering. Her colors were almost wearing through the magic disguise.

"Stop, please stop! You're scaring her!" Ashlyn pleaded, then resumed her soft singing.

"Uhhh, I'm sorry, Rhe'en." I knelt down next to them, "It's OK, I'm not mad at you - I just wanted to get those guys away from you, alright?" I pasted an idiot's smile on my face, "See? The scary witch is gone now! OK?"

"Yeah, that's a good imitation of a nightshade you did!" Brook, who had walked up, commented.

"Who sounded like a Screaming Banshee!" Giggled Barka, then shied away when I pretended to throw something at him.

I turn back to Rhe'en, "So... what happened?"

"The day students, t-they kept asking me to help them with the s-spell... but there were too many of them!" She finally replied.

"OK, no more crap from them - from now on you're sitting with us!" I decided, turning to Brook, "Back me up on this..."

"Hey, no prob! We'll just let Master Gendun know we're working on the spells together!"

We took Rhe'en to our table, and I realized I was quite hungry. As I was eating, I could tell Ashlyn was sending a stream of dark green, almost black, threads into Rhe'en.

"Are you feeding Rhe'en?"

"Something like that," Ashlyn replied, "In nature we would absorb it from the plants around us but Rhe'en needs strength now and I can share some of mine with her."

"I can take over now, if you want a break." I said, shoving the last bit of food in my face.

"You... Ahh, right, you can copy it."

"Exactly." I gave my hand to Rhe'en and fed the same rich green strands to her. Rhe'en was visibly getting stronger and her swirling gray glamor settled much more firmly on her. "Rhe'en, how much energy do you need?"

"I'll be OK soon, you can stop if you want."

"No, I mean, like, how much can you use?" She gave a little shrug, "OK, just tell me when you've had enough." I turned to Ashlyn, "How 'bout giving me a 'squirt?' " And just like that, I was floating in the warm, sudsy caresses of her magic.

I converted that into the green stuff for Rhe'en, who was noticeably steadier by the minute. Her glamor settled on her so that it no longer bothered me to look at her face. In fact I was staring at her. She still looked the same girl, yet moment by moment, she was changing.

"Y-you're beautiful!" Barka blurted out. And we nodded our agreement around the table.

"Why, thank you...!" Rhe'en replied, with a brilliant smile. Complete with dimples, fer crying out loud! "You're not so bad yourself!" She started giggling, then frowned and stopped. She turned to me, "I think I've had enough, now!"

"Wow, sorry. I'm sorry!" I yanked my hand away, "I didn't mean to overdo it!" The harrowing experience of almost drowning in the magic was still way too fresh in my mind.

"Not your fault, Julie." Rhe'en patted my arm, "It's just that I've never had this much power before. It's not something I could normally get from nature." She closed her eyes, "It feels good, right; like what we SHOULD be, I am certain. Perhaps we lost something when the magic faded, or when the tree groves were cut down..."

"How long can you stay like this?"

"A day, maybe more." She gave us her eloquent shrug.

"So same time tomorrow? Or just find me when you need a recharge." I offered, and that got me a dazzling dimpled smile. I found myself liking this Rhe'en, a lot.

The class bell went. "We need to have our meeting with Master Gendun," Ashlyn reminded me.

"Will you be back in time for gym?" Sheila asked.

"Of course." Brook nodded, "she needs to be back by fifth period," she aimed a ghoulish smile at me, "for algebra."


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Master Gendun, Yu and the Medmage were having another deep discussion when we found them in the garden. Apparently they were discussing what each wanted the magic to do with the plants.

"Ashlyn, please show Julie the link to the Richmond lei-line and we will join you as soon as we can."

I followed her back to the maze and through to the Tree. It was only the second time I had seen it up close since Ashlyn and I met the wolf-demon there. It was amazing how much it had changed in the time. Instead of a sapling with a few leaves sprouting, it was now ten or more feet tall with a generous green canopy and dozens of apples hanging on every branch.

"Geez, that's a good-looking tree!" I said admiringly.

"Thank you!" Ashlyn smiled. "Just sit anywhere..." She paused, then did something with her hands. A piece of the trunk stretched out and extended roots to make a simple stool. "That'll be more comfortable, I guess!" She grinned at me, clearly delighted at her handiwork. "I've never thought of doing that!" Another stool popped out for her to sit on.

"This is so freaky!" I said as I joined her, "It's like having your own full-size doll house - or is it a tree house?" We both laughed.

"Yeah, just the limited feed from the Richmond line is letting me do this, it'll be even more amazing once we can get a more reliable connection going!" She paused, "Can you tell where it is?"

"Hell yeah," I said, pointing to the ground, "The root is like shiny with power. I can follow it, but I'm afraid to touch it..." I looked at her, "I can't understand how you can take all that power without going crazy!"

"I was built for this," Ashlyn said matter-of-factly, "and I cannot directly use the magic power the way you can, so it's easier for me. Think of the Tree as a big balloon for the magic. Right now we're about half-full, and the Richmond connection, once it's complete, will bring us almost to the limit. What I have to do is to build up the Tree-balloon to hold even more!"

"Ah, it's making more sense to me now! And, somehow, you, or the Tree turns the 'raw' magic to something you can both use to make it grow!"

"Yes, something like that." Ashyn nodded, "and of course that means the Tree itself will need to be at least four, five times this size before we can hope to handle the rest of the lei-lines."

"Looks like you... WE have a bit of work ahead of us!"

"Yeah, what do you want to do now?" She asked.

"Let me get a look at what you've done first to get a feel for things, then maybe see if I can find another way..." I closed my eyes and traced the root from the Tree, careful not to touch the root itself, which seemed to be pulsing at me, inviting me to touch it, to share in its awesome might. And the further I went, the sharper and more frequent the pulses got.

Before too long I had to stop, "Does the power feel like waves to you? Like it's a bunch of bees, rushing and buzzing like crazy. I feel like it's constantly trying to roll me over or something."

"You've just described the surges before a transition," Ashlyn said, "I don't feel it yet, but it's possible the Magic is about to fade, and you know what happens then."

"Ah, I hope that's it, 'cos I don't think I'd be able to handle it if it's always like this!" I withdrew my senses and took a few deep breaths.

"You must be a heck of a lot more sensitive than me to be able to tell so far in advance!" Ashlyn said, "But it'll let me top up before the fun starts!"

"Oh shit, ahhh, I'm sorry Ashlyn. I knew you gave your energy to Rhe'en, and I forgot to offer you any!" I realized that she had been feeding on the green threads from her Tree, but all she was getting was a trickle, and she had given a whole lot more to the Spriggan. I grabbed her hand and started converting magic to what she needed.

"Do you need a 'squirt?' " she asked.

"Er, wait, let me try this first..." While visualising a hypodermic needle, I fashioned the tiniest of probes and approached the root with it. The pulses were definitely stronger than before, but by staying a respectable ways from it, I was able to draw power from it without feeling like I was drowning.

"Oh yeah!" Ashlyn said, "This is so much better than what I could do by myself!" She was smiling happily and she was even feeding some of it back to her Tree.

"I was just wondering, how far exactly is it to get to the Richmind lei-line? It seemed like I went a ways and I haven't even reached the blockage yet!"

"It's not close, about 2 and a half miles on the map but you know I had to find open passages, and then there's that pesky river... the root cannot go through open water so I had to go around it!"

"Wouldn't it make sense to find a closer one? I know the Savannah lei-line is just a half mile from here." Where Kate had taken me to get to her house.

"Yeah... Let's ask Master Gendun about that. Now that we can go through the rock, it makes sense to find something closer. Savannah would definitely be a good one!"

"Yeah, I'll ask him about it. Oh, and make sure you stop me before you get too juiced!" I warned her.

"Not to worry - I don't think I can get giddy like Rhe'en. Remember the Tree and I were designed to hold magic!"

"You're feeding the Tree with your magic, aren't you?"

"Yes, I get my energy from it, but it needs something else from me in order to grow..." She thought about it, "It's like I have to give it a reason to grow, 'cos otherwise it's quite happy being this size."

"But we know you need it to be much bigger to handle the extra magic, right?"

"Yeah, it's the same when I told it to make the chairs... It's like I can talk to it when I send it my power."

"That's a cool trick to have!" I laughed, "But the shocks are getting really strong now, I'm not sure how much longer I can do this."

"Yeah, I'm begining to feel them too. And I'm good-to-go now, thanks to you!" Ashlyn said. She glanced upwards and a bough over my head looped down and offered me a Golden Delicious. "And my Tree thanks you too!" She laughed.

"Why thank you, Tree!" I stood to take the fruit offered and turned to Ashlyn, "Thank you as well, but I'd swear the apple wasn't here when we sat down!"

"Extra magic, remember? Looks like we can do a lot of things with it!" She said, "Now, I have to get ready for work!" She gave me a smile and a wave as she, along with the stools, melted into the Tree.

I munched on the apple as I went out of the maze. I could tell Yu was still in the garden, so I headed that way. Just outside the kitchen, Master Gendrun and the Medmage were in the courtyard, in another arm-waving discussion. The medmage was talking about growing some miracle drug called Samoan Kava as I went up.

"Is there a problem, Julie?" Master Gendun asked.

"Yeah, kinda, Ashlyn says the magic is going soon, so we'll have to wait - I'm on my way to let Yu know..."

"Yes, alright." He nodded.

"Sir... We were just talking and Ashlyn and I wondered if we can't work a different lei-line. One that's a bit closer than Richmond. Ashlyns says that it's over two miles and we have to go around some water."

"Yes, that's very interesting." He said thoughtfully, "Come see me at the end of Study Period and we can go over the map."

They returned to their conversation and I headed to the Garden, where I found Yu standing among the herbs.

"Magic's going soon, you better finish whatever you're doing... What ARE you doing?" I asked.

"I'm attempting to use magic to fashion an environment that would be optimal for plant growth."

"So... a magical green house!" I laughed.

"Precisely, we have decided on providing on a constant supply of heat and light in order for them to thrive."

"Ahhh..." Which explained the little pools of light over the plants around him. "Can I watch?"

Yu nodded noncommitally and continued. He appeared to be pushing some of his god threads out on his hand and tying it down with some blue human threads. After two or three minutes, he had a walnut size lump that sucked in magic and emitted warmth and a glow.

He floated it over the plants and started on another one. I was staring at it when the magic went. To my senses, the tech wave dropped down like a shard of glass; hard and sharp. While the magic that was coming from Ashlyn's root was softer, but it seemed much tougher and had no problems absorbing the crushing power of tech and keeping it six feet off the ground.

Yu was still working away, unperturbed, so I tried to emulate what he was doing, but I had the bitch of a time getting my own threads to behave. To begin with, there just weren't all that many silvery-god threads on me. And when I could get a clump of them to stay together, the blue threads didn't want to cooperate. After fifteen minutes, I finally got a tiny lump on my hand, which sat there and did nothing. Ahh, so what else was I doing wrong?

Reaching out, ethereally speaking, I duplicated some of the stuff that Yu was working on and, as soon as it formed in my hand, presto! it turned into a floating source of heat and light!

Yu looked at it, nodding in approval, "That's exactly right! Good job!"

"That's exactly cheating!" I said, "I just copied yours! I got nothing when I tried to do it on my own..."

"That you can start your own is even better!"

"Even if it does nothing?"

"Even..." Yu looked at me, "The fact you are able to move your own magic, indicates you are virtually there!"

"Really?"

"Yes, that is two-thirds of the requirements of magic manipulation! You have Will, you have Power - all that's missing is Purpose!" I frowned as he continued, "You have to instruct your magic what you want it to do, give it the Purpose!" He nodded, "You just have to work at it!"

"Like everything else..." I sighed. "I'll watch you make a few more and I'll practice by myself."

"You are doing well, Julie Olsen. Did I not tell you? You ARE a god!" He gave me a great big smoking-hot grin.

"Get back to work..." I waved him off. No need for him to see how shaky I'd suddenly become. Forcing myself to take shallow breaths, I watched him fiddle with his magic blobs while waiting for my heart to stop pounding. Damned baby gods, nothing but a pain in the butt!

After a while, I got back to making my little puddle of magic. Purpose, huh? From watching Yu, I could tell that the blue threads did the work, while all the silver threads did was feed on magic, so...

Ha! I just thought about it and the little silver buggers started chomping on the free magic, getting bigger, and bigger, and...

I managed to unthink it from feeding before something happened, something bad, I sensed.

Okaay then, work on the blue threads FIRST! What do I need? Light... and it was there. Having spent all this time on the magic lights made it quite easy. Heat turned out to be pretty straightforward too. Now the floating bit. Again by telling some of the blue threads to float, it did.

So now I had a blob of warm light, suspended six inches off my palm. I turned to show Yu and the damn thing started drifting away! It was just following the breeze, merrily bouncing six inches off the ground, until the magic, or whatever holding it together was used up and it vanished.

Shit! I turned to Yu to ask him how he makes the blob stay in one place and stopped. Damn girl, you have a brain, use it! It was Kate's lecturing voice, followed by the sound of her snickering in my head. It hit me then, making me stop and close my eyes. Oh Kate... Please, please be OK, wherever you are.

I took a deep breath and got back to remake the blob. This one came together easily, and Yu even thought it was good, even though he had to show me how to turn down the amount of heat. I also found that I could convert free magic to act like my threads and it was simpler than to try and urge them out of my body. I had time to do two when Ashlyn came back and announced it was time for Algebra.

"Just go and tell them that I'm busy, with official-like stuff. In fact, why don't you stay with us here?"

"Nope!" She grinned, "Brook left explicit instructions!"

"Some pal YOU are!" I grumbled as she took my arm and hustled me back to class.

* * *

"What's with this Poly-whatchamacallit crap?" Ashlyn grumbled as we trouped out after the class bell went, "Took me half the period just to learn to spell it!"

"You're way ahead of me, I STILL can't spell it, let alone figure it out!" I said. "I TOLD you we shouldn't have come to class!"

"I know a way to get you guys up to speed!" Brook smiled rather unkindly at us.

"Don't say it," I warned her, "or I'll... I'll do something... as soon as my brain starts working again!" I looked over at Sheila, "You understand this shit?"

"If I do, I do... If not..." She shrugged, "I don't imagine I'd need it all that much in the Red Guard."

"Yeah, I guess..." I looked at her and she looked back, "Wait, it's gym now isn't it?" She nodded, "And tech is still up..." She nodded again. I grinned at her, "Which means we get to shoot things up?" She grinned back. "Hell yeah, I really, really need to mangle some targets!"

We walked downstairs to the gym where Brook joined the netball game while Ashlyn stayed to watch. She was exempt from sports, and pretty much everything since she may need to tend to her Tree 24/7.

Sheila and I went down the stairs to the 'Ring' and Toby was there warming up. I waved him over, "When are you heading back to the Keep? Shouldn't you be back with your Pack already?" The last few months before the Change could be quite hazardous to a were, so they were usually spent surrounded by his own kind.

"Didn't you hear? About what happened at the Keep?"

"About Kate and Curran disappearing? Yeah."

"No, after they left..." He looked at Sheila, "Can I speak with Julie for a few minutes, please?"

"I'll see you inside then." She said as she took off.

"What happened?" I turned back to Toby.

"The Alpha was challenged..." Ah, Jennifer. She had inherited the Wolves when her husband died defending the Weres, and nobody had the heart to turf her out, figuring she'd go back to her knitting when things settled down. Instead she stayed and started playing politics, including trying to bribe people to support her and generally making a mess of eveything.

"Desandra?" I made a guess. Toby nodded. Desandra was one of the weres that came over from Central Europe. Barely seventeen, she had been tossed around as a pawn in a century-long power struggle. That she survived, along with her two kids, said bundles about her smarts and toughness. She'd taken over as Beta, or second-in-command of the wolves within two months, but when Jennifer tried to turn people against her children, it became a matter of when, not if.

"Did it last more than ten seconds?"

Toby shrugged, "The Alpha had three or four of her guards with her. Desandra waded through them and took care of Jennifer..." He drew a finger across his neck, "Now she's scheduling 'meetings' with everybody..."

"Cleaning house." I filled in and he nodded. Leadership changes like this are usually accompanied by a few broken limbs, if not worse, to ensure everybody got on board with the new management.

"So Mom told me to stay away until things settle. I still have a month or two..."

"Yeah, that's shitty." I nodded, "So how come you get to know these things and I only hear about it a week later?"

"The Rats have surveillance on us. And he'll pass messages along as well."

"And nobody told me? So, next time, can you get me and show me how you do it? Right now I'm off to blast away some of my frustrations!" I waved goodbye and headed into a set of heavy metal doors.

Inside was a small waiting area and the Armorer's office. I checked out my weapons case along with a box of ammo and the monitor gave me the lane next to Sheila. I stepped through another set of thick doors.

The noise hit me like a fist, the sting of cordite making my eyes and nose itch. Half the lanes were occupied, and most shooters were rapid firing big-ass cartridges, trying to shred their targets. Painful experience had taught us that anything smaller than a 9-mil would not be able to discourage the "varmints" from having a quick snack at our expense. I could see and hear a lot of .45's and some even more esoteric loads.

I watched Sheila empty her clip as I set up my station, checked my pistol and adjusted my protective gear. She was hunkered down, double fisted, with a wicked all-black semi, an AR, ripping through the target at 10 yards, most shots hitting in a nice tight group. She was already on her second magazine, judging by the brass at her feet.

I set up a single target, and did a 5-shot group at 10 yards, reloaded, then again at 15. When I was done, Sheila was checking her result, and her target showed a nice big hole inside the 3" with few scatters.

"Good shooting!" I told her and she grinned back. I unloaded the gun and retrieved my score. She gave me a thumbs up. All the shots were inside the three.

I replaced the target with a silhouette and sent it to 10 yds. As soon as it was in place, I picked up the gun, popped in a new magazine, racked the slide and sent two shots into the center of mass. Bang, bang. A double tap. Then, before the second casing hit the ground, I fired a shot into the head.

Sheila was looking at me as I reloaded the gun. "Do it again!" She said. I nodded. I took a step back and turned with my back to the target. In one motion, I twist-stepped, grabbed the gun, chambered it, and repeated the shots. Double tap to the body, then a head shot. A few of the others had stopped to watch.

"What? That pop-shooter? What's in it, .22s?" Yelled one of the guys who'd been destroying paper with what looked, and sounded like a S&amp;W Magnum.

"No, it's a 9-mil," Sheila held up my previous target, "right?" I nodded.

I finished reloading the magazine, laid the gun down and took a step back, saying, "My weak side is slower, but it should still work." I whipped around, loaded, cocked and went Bang, bang... bang. With my left hand.

"Why that pattern?" Sheila wanted to know.

"If a bad guy is coming at you, the body shots would only slow him down, but not take him out. With enough body shots, he may bleed out in a bit, but until then, he can still charge you, or worse, finish pointing HIS gun at you. That's why the third shot has to be decisive, if it is to be useful. Also, I have to conserve my shots, I only have seven bullets in this gun, not like the 13 in yours," I nodded to Mr. Smith &amp; Wesson, who was really named Drew. "And if I use up all my bullets to take one guy down, what happens if he has an accomplice?"

"Nah, I can do if I wanted to! And... see?" He held up his brute of a revolver, "this beauty has 8 shots!"

"Ahh, the 'R8,' right?" I asked.

"Hey, yeah, you know your guns!" He said, "Want to try?" Without waiting, he safed it and handed it to me. His buddies crowded in, not wanting to miss seeing the skinny chick get dumped on her ass by the huge mother of a cannon.

The model was the S&amp;W 327 "Match Performance," the factory tuned version of an already elite firearm. And, fully loaded, three times the weight of my little pistol.

"Nice!" I checked the four unfired cartridges inside the cylinder. "Wad-cutters?" He nodded. With high-power guns design to kill large game, normal bullets would not mushroom against a paper target, so blunt-tipped bullets, called wad-cutters, are used to better indicate impact spot.

BANG! I turned and fired, letting the heavy recoil ride up my forearm and shoulder to keep the barrel steady. Downrange, the groin portion of my paper target had disappeared in confetti.

"Ohhh... Wow..." Drew grimaced, "NOW I'm impressed."

"That's for the bad guy who's got body armor, natural or otherwise." I grinned, handing the gun back, "It handles real nice, better than I'd expect from a .357 mag."

"You've shot big cals before?" Drew asked.

"Well, my aunt Andrea has a .44 Magnum..." I started.

"Dirty Harry!" Drew and a few others cried out.

"No, not quite, it's the newer version of the model 29; the S&amp;W 629, with the suppressor." I said.

"Hey, nice. Do you think you could..." Drew started.

"The 500 is way cooler!"

"The 50-AE has more stopping power!"

"Hey, the Desert Eagle is ten times better!" Drew's friend started offering their opinions and pretty soon they were yelling at each other over the best big cal handguns.

"Boys!" Sheila grinned, "always looking for compensation!" She then gestured at my gun, "Wanna swap?" I nodded and we exchanged stations.

Her gun was the compact Armalite AR-24. A good solid semi-automatic, with 12 cartridges stagger-stacked in the grip. A glance down the ejector showed she took really good care of it. We fired a few groups and compared scores.

"I like your gun," Sheila said, "easy to aim, grouping's good and it's really light!"

"Yeah, that's the reason I like the Boberg so much. It's got the same effective range as your AR but it's thinner, an inch shorter and over a pound lighter." I said, "I DO miss the extra shells but my hand's just not big enough for the AR. I got to try out a dozen or so pistols before finding this one." I grinned, "Helps to have an aunt who's a Master-certified armorer!"

Sheila held up her hand against mine, "But our hands are about the same size, so you think the gun's too big for me too?"

"Maybe, but you're stronger... Shoot one handed instead."

She tried it and there was a noticeable drift to one side. "Yeah, without the supporting hand, your trigger finger is pulling the shot. It's not bad, but you'll have keep remembering to compensate for it. Trouble is, it'll only get worse if you want to work with your weaker hand!"

"Yeah, I think you're right. I'll see if I can pick out a smaller gun."

"You're welcome to use mine any time we're down here."

"Thanks, Julie. I appreciate it."

We fired a few more groups with our own guns and soon it was time to clean up and sweep up the spent casings.

Drew came by and asked, "I wanted to ask if you think you could bring the 629 to school so we can try it?"

"I'll ask my aunt and we'll see."

"Thanks, and, ah, good shooting!" He offered with a grin.


End file.
